


Change of Plans

by rivendellrose



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M, Gen, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 18:29:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9136246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivendellrose/pseuds/rivendellrose
Summary: Harry and Sarah Jane have a tradition about Valentine's Day, until one year when it all gets messed up.Written and posted on Livejournal as part of a series of ficlets for Valentine's Day back in 2008.





	

The phone rang only once before she answers - unusual for Sarah Jane, who’s usually too occupied with whatever she’s doing to pick up promptly. She must have been at her desk already, writing, Harry thought. She confirmed this a moment later, saying she’d been working on a new article. “What occasions the call?”

“Well, I was looking at the calendar yesterday, and I noticed it’s nearly Valentine’s Day,” Harry points out. “It’s Tuesday,” he adds, since Sarah rarely keeps good account of the date. 

“Of course...”

“Unless you’re busy, of course, I thought we might go out for dinner. Just for a bit of fun.” 

They’ve had this conversation ten times before, the Sunday before Valentine’s for each of the ten years since Sarah returned from her travels with the Doctor, and yet he always makes the invitation as though it was the first time - an afterthought, nothing more. No expectation must be assumed, no implication allowed to work into his voice. He did not own her, nor her time, and the day he implied as much even with the best of intentions, he knew full well she’d be gone. It is imperative that the tone of the invitation be kept as light as possible. 

Some years he almost resents her for making him walk on eggshells like this, year after year. And yet, he has never managed to convince himself that she isn’t worth every minute of the effort, once she accepts. And she’s always accepted, after all, so really...

“Er... Harry, I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I’ve already made plans.” 

_Had_ always accepted, that is. In the past. Harry blinks once, and recovers himself with the calm and grace under pressure that is required of a military physician. “Of course. Don’t worry in the slightest, old thing. We’ve always said it was just unless the other had someone else.”

“It’s this new bloke I’ve met - a photographer. He worked with me on that magazine article I did last month, and... Well. He asked me last week, and I thought, why not give it a try.”

A photographer. He worked with her on an article. Harry’s fingers tightened on the back of the chair, and he unclenched them slowly and deliberately. He has no provisional rights over her. He never has. They’ve always made this arrangement on the basis that it could be pre-empted at any time. “Of course,” he answeed lightly. “No, you’re right to do it, Sarah. I hope you have a lovely time.”

“Thank you. You, too. You ought to ask that woman at your office, the oncologist. The one who loaned you the crepe pan, you said she was single, didn’t you? She was a lovely woman. Beautiful hair, and I think she fancied you.”

“Miranda got married last year, Sarah.” She’d loaned him the crepe pan two years before, and given up flirting with him some months after. She’d wanted a more serious relationship, she’d said, and she’d gotten the idea that he was in love with someone else. In love with Sarah Jane, in fact. She was a clever woman, Miranda. 

“Oh. I’m sorry, Harry. I didn’t know.”

“Don’t be, I was quite pleased for her. She’s a lovely woman, and her husband’s quite a good chap. I went to dinner with them some months back.”

“Well... There’s plenty of time for you to meet someone new...” Even Sarah didn’t sound as though she believed that one.

“I rather doubt it, Sarah. But I’m not worried. I’ve been busy at work lately, it’ll be nice to have a quiet night in. Have a good week, Sarah. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“You, too. Take care.”

He hung up the phone and carefully sat down on the sofa, then stood back up again and put on his coat. He was not going to sit around the house and sulk just because Sarah Jane had another date for Valentine’s. She deserved it. Maybe it was time for him to move on, too, and stop constantly relying on this holding pattern they’d been dancing through for the last ten years. His friends had all been telling him so for years, but... they didn’t know Sarah, did they? 

Harry shook his head and left the house, trying not to think about what exactly this photographer of hers was like. Trying not to think about how there wasn’t another woman on Earth quite like Sarah Jane.

* * *

Valentine’s Day had become a routine to Sarah Jane after ten years of passing it with Harry Sullivan, and for once it was exciting to think of doing things a bit differently, with someone else. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Harry - she adored him, of course, he was one of her best friends. Probably _the_ best, at least on Earth. But he wasn’t the most creative man alive. Every Valentine’s that they’d spent together had gone the same. He called her the Sunday before and asked her in that calmly cautious way he had, and then on the day of he would show up precisely at the time they’d agreed on. He’d only been late once, and that turned out to be the day he’d been caught in an emergency consult. He dressed very nicely, always a necktie and jacket, and always wore that ridiculous bowler hat that she’d never had the heart to tell him was decades out of style. He always brought her a bouquet of red roses. They always went to Italian, always the same little place, where he always ordered the same fine white wine and the same chicken parmesean. She always ordered something she’d never tried, mostly to goad him. They chatted through the meal, talking about the same things they always did on any other day, and he always turned out to have paid the waiter to play a slightly soppy song on the violin. He always insisted on ordering dessert, and then always refused to have any himself. “Not getting as much exercise as I used to, I’m afraid,” he always remarked. “It’d be a shame if the uniform didn’t fit anymore.”

He always drove her back to her house, except in the years before she’d inherited the house, when he’d naturally driven her back to her flat. He always walked her to the door, always the gentleman, and kissed her goodnight with the same gentle solicitousness. He always looked just the slightest bit surprised when she invited him in, and always, _always_ , told her that she was the most remarkable woman he’d ever known. 

It wasn’t that it was tedious, exactly - Harry was a wonderful, kind man, and quite a good lover in addition to that. It was just that she felt at once too young and too old to have such a predictable routine as the near-extent of her romantic life. Anyway, it wasn’t good for him, either. Harry was an old-fashioned sort of fellow, and Sarah had a notion he’d never really be pleased with a modern woman like her. Much as he claimed he didn’t, she suspected that he wanted someone to settle down with. If he didn’t quite want someone who’d darn his socks, he probably wouldn’t object if that was what he ended up with. And she wasn’t the sock-darning sort. So that was that. Better for both of them to give up the charade and find people more suitable to their needs.

Andrew was like that. Andrew was an artist, and a journalist - he understood what it was like to chafe under society’s expectations, and if he was a bit younger than her... well, it was only by two years, and that hardly mattered. He was charming and debonair, he spoke Swahili and had lived in the bush for years working with a very well-respected ethnographer, and he had three books of his work published. And he was impetuous, unpredictable. Yes, Sarah thought, brushing out her hair one last time - this would make a good change for her. 

...At least, it would if he ever showed up. 

Twenty minutes late, just when she’d begun to think that perhaps she ought to call to make sure he hadn’t forgotten, Andrew pulled into her drive and honked for her. Harry always rang at the door... but the point of this was doing things differently, wasn’t it? Sarah straightened her skirt, shook out her hair, and checked the mirror in the hallway one last time, and stepped out into the evening gloom for her first _exciting_ Valentine’s date in almost as long as she could remember. 

It was certainly a night she wouldn’t soon forget.

Andrew hated Italian, she was pleased to discover, so they went for curry. The place was new, and when the waiter finally brought it, the food was only mediocre, and much less spicy than Sarah had hoped. Andrew was deeply apologetic, and insisted on buying wine to make up for it, even though she thought that a funny choice for curry. The red he picked was vinegary and almost thick with tannin. The dessert was mango mousse. Sarah had never realized how much she relished her annual tiramisu until she was faced with that cheerful, brilliantly yellow confection. It was _good_ mango mousse, she told herself defensively. She was just... in the habit, she supposed, of the tiramisu. She’d considered ordering those little fried dumplings soaked in rosewater syrup instead, but Andrew had made a remark about them being nothing but fat-globules coated in sugar, and then made a pointed remark about the woman eating them at the next table and how he couldn’t bear a woman over forty who couldn’t be bothered to watch her figure. 

“Look at her, the cow,” he continued. “Imagine she was quite pretty when she was young, don’t you think? I mean, look at the husband, he’s certainly got money. Can’t imagine he’d marry a rasher of bacon like her if he meant to,” he continued, and took a deep sip of his coffee. “If you’re not going to finish that mousse, d’you mind if I snag some?”

Sarah pushed the plate over to him and imagined him ballooning to twice his current girth. It was one of the best thoughts she’d had all night.

He got lost twice driving her home, both times conveniently ending up headed toward the neighborhood she remembered him mentioning that he lived in, and both times laughed a bit too loudly when she corrected him. When they finally got back to her house, he opened her door and then stood, hands in his pockets, and looked speculatively up at her house. “So, shall I come up?”

Sarah looked him over once, taking in the batik shirt and longish hair she’d thought were so charmingly bohemian, the affected looseness of his walk, the way he’d bragged all through dinner about the important people he knew and had worked with, and then smiled her brightest and most polite smile. “I think not. Thank you for a lovely evening, Andrew. Goodnight.”

He shrugged and got back into the car, and drove away. Harry, Sarah couldn’t resist thinking, would at least have waited until she’d got into the house, if not actually walked her up to the door himself. Well... not everyone was Harry Sullivan, were they? She’d wanted something different this year, and she’d certainly gotten it. 

The house was dark, and the television was full of nothing but soppy movies for all the bleeding-hearts who couldn’t get a date but wished they’d had one. After flicking twice through the channels and opening three different books without finding herself interested in anything, Sarah picked up her car keys... and then hesitated. What if Harry _had_ asked someone out? What if, when she arrived, she was interrupting exactly the romantic routine he’d gone through with her on so many Valentines’ past? 

Well... he could just not answer the door, then, couldn’t he? 

At his house, the silence after her knock was so long that she almost gave up. Just as she was starting to turn away, Harry opened the door... wearing nothing but a t-shirt and boxers, his hair rather mussed. 

“Oh, god. I’ve interrupted, haven’t I?” Sarah covered her mouth, aghast at herself. Of course he wouldn’t ignore the door at ten o’clock in the evening - he’d assume it was something important, and he was _Harry_ , for goodness’ sake, a man who’d never shirked responsibility in his life. 

“Sarah?” What’s wrong, old thing?” 

“I’m sorry, Harry, I just... thought I’d stop by, and I didn’t think... I wasn’t thinking, and here you are...” She waved her hands helplessly. 

Harry stared at her, and then lifted his left hand. A pair of reading glasses dangled from his fingers. “Catching up on journals?”

Sarah stared. “In your boxers?”

“Well, it wasn’t as if I was expecting guests.” He folded the glasses and set them neatly on the little table in his entryway. “What’s happened? I thought you had a date. And you certainly _look_ as if you did,” he added, gesturing at her elegant knee-length dress. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong, my date was just...” Sarah raised a hand to forestall an imminent rush of questions from Harry. “Nothing horrendous. He didn’t... turn out to be a Sontaran in disguise or something. He was just... He’s gone, anyway. Dropped me off at home an hour ago, we said goodnight, and he’s gone. And I’m glad,” she added.

“Well... that’s good then. If you’re glad.” Harry ran a hand through his hair, clearly bemused. “Did you... want to come in and talk about it?” 

“There’s nothing to talk about, honestly, Harry. I just... didn’t feel like being alone. I thought of you, and how I’d put you off on Sunday, and I just thought...”

“That I’d be alone,” he finished for her. 

“No! I mean, I... don’t make it sound like that. You told me yourself you didn’t have anybody... and that was my fault, I know, for putting you off at the last minute.”

“We always do things at the last minute.” Harry shrugged. “I suppose there had to be at least one year that it didn’t work out.”

“I do that to you, thought. I call, and you drive to Aberdeen. I make you wait until the last minute, and... and then I go off with an idiot photographer who takes me to the worst curry place in London.”

“Well, that’s a shame...”

“I know! But that’s not my point,” Sarah continued quickly, lest they get distracted by the relative merits of curry. “The point is... I don’t know. Am I taking advantage, Harry? Tell me, honestly. Am I?”

Harry thought for a moment, and then tugged her gently over to the sofa, where he sat on the arm so that he could look her in the eye. “If I didn’t want to do these things, Sarah, I wouldn’t do them. You’re not making me do anything I don’t want to do.”

“But it isn’t...”

“It doesn’t matter.” Harry bent forward and kissed her softly. He smelled of laundry detergent and whiskey, and under that the faintly salty, musky smell of just _him_. When they parted, Sarah dropped her head onto his shoulder, and they sat for a long moment, she just breathing, he combing her hair softly with his fingers. His calluses rasped on the back of her neck every so often, sending shivers down her back. 

“I’ve made a bit of a mess of our Valentines’, haven’t I?” Sarah murmured after the silence had extended comfortably beyond any fear of either of them being angry. 

“Well... we’re both here, aren’t we? We’re together, and... I haven’t cooled any white wine, but I’ve got plenty of whiskey, and...” Harry shuffled, and when Sarah angled her head to look at him he looked a bit embarrassed. “Also quite a large box of chocolate-covered strawberries I’d bought on Saturday, before I found out you had other plans. Had no idea what I was going to do with them, alone, so...”

Sarah laughed. “You bought chocolate-covered strawberries?”

“I’d thought we might do something different this year.” He chuckled softly. “I guess I got that part right, at least.”


End file.
